'It will come again; it will come; oh, heaven!'
'What--what is it, Maud?'
'The face! the face!' I cried. 'Oh, Milly! Milly! Milly!'
We heard a step softly approaching the open door, and, in a horrible _sauve
qui peut_, we rushed and stumbled together toward the light by Uncle
Silas's bed. But old Wyat's voice and figure reassured us.
'Milly,' I said, so soon as, pale and very faint, I reached my apartment,
'no power on earth shall ever tempt me to enter that room again after
dark.'
'Why, Maud dear, what, in Heaven's name, did you see?' said Milly, scarcely
less terrified.
'Oh, I can't; I can't; I can't, Milly. Never ask me. It is haunted. The
room is haunted _horribly_.'
'Was it Charke?' whispered Milly, looking over her shoulder, all aghast.
'No, no--don't ask me; a fiend in a worse shape.' I was relieved at last by
a long fit of weeping; and all night good Mary Quince sat by me, and Milly
slept by my side. Starting and screaming, and drugged with sal-volatile, I
got through that night of supernatural terror, and saw the blessed light of
heaven again.
Doctor Jolks, when he came to see my uncle in the morning, visited me also.
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